Pop the Strate

Lollipop 3, 10" x 10", paper and encaustic on panel.

(Wherein Lollipop monotype was glued to a panel and used as the substrate for the encaustic. The Saint-Armand paper worked very nicely with the encaustic. Love the stuff!)
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Merry Christmas, one and all!

Hominids

Globes, approx 8" x 8", encaustic monotype on Saint-Armand "Colours" watercolor paper, with charcoal pencil.

Monotype

Lollipop, approx 8" x 10", encaustic monotype on Saint-Armand "Colours" watercolor paper. (Companion piece here.)
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Summer Days

Winslow Homer, Artists Sketching in the White Mountains 1868 (Portland Museum of Art)
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France. Nuff said?

Eight and Done

Eight and Done, 10" x 10", encaustic, seeds, and paper on panel.

Princess Hat

Princess Hat, 10" x 10" encaustic and antique linen pillowcase on panel

What is it about princesses, that they actually look good in hats? I ask you: is this fair?


☛ Kathryn Dettwiller's list of reasons she loves encaustic, all of which I share: Let Me Count the Reasons
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Bonhomie

Shower Curtain, 10" x 10" encaustic on panel. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hey, Spottie!

Sun Spots, 10" x 10" encaustic on panel












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Two more pieces from this weekend -- Tube and Water  -- in the Gallery2010. I am thinking of filling the thin incised lines in Water with a pigment stick color. What do you think? Should I use a compliment (an orange or a yellow orange) or an adjacent (a blue or a green)?

Vote! What color lines should I add to Water? See it in Gallery2010.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Autumn Fruit Fullness

From Snorgtees.

Latitude Longitude

'Yellow Grid', 8" x 8", encaustic + mixed media on panel. (This one is way better in person than on the web. Sorry.)











☛ See 6 (!) more new pieces in the Gallery here:


☛ See new Introduction to Encaustics page. Please leave comments and questions!

I like how it cuts the sky

I had a delightful dusk encounter with Richard Serra yesterday that I very much enjoyed.

Wait! Hush!

A peculiar "museum" is one whose printed Visitor Guidelines include this gem: Please do not publish any writing about your visit to [...] through public or social media.

I like the please part. Should I honor that humble yet unbelievably, almost absurdly pretentious request?

Fiddlesticks to that.

I can and I will still gush and moan and drool all over the Serra. What a spectacular job HE has, eh? Dream up these utterly riveting objects and then actually freaking build them. This one is outdoors and it was about 4:30, the sun right above the horizon and glaring through between among an adjacent leafless stand of trees. Inside the Serra it was kind of dark and scratchy. But the sky above me was lit luminous, so the rusty walls glowed. There is one tree, very nearby (an oval puddle of its fallen leaves was like a welcome mat, right at my entrance to the spiral) and looking up from various spots inside you can see the crown of this tree gripping the top edge of my Serra.

Now "my" Serra, totally. "I like how it cuts the sky" was his comment on this particular installation and I wholeheartedly share his appraisal.

Indra's Cloud

by Anne Percoco. Read/see more here.

From bright to muted

Ghost Scratch, 10" x 10", encaustic and "vintage" Irish linen on panel


Blue Fists, 10" x 10", encaustic and mixed media on panel

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☛ See new Introduction to Encaustics page. Please leave comments and questions!
☛ I added these two pieces (above), and two other new pieces, to the Gallery:

Better luck next time!

And there will be a next time.

"Painterly"

Definitions of "painterly" through the ages. Consensus? Hmm. Most of them mention color vs. line. I prefer something a bit more encompassing.

My fav def so far, from Dan Twitchell:
A work of art done in a manner that embraces, shows, and celebrates the medium it's created in (be it oil paint, pastels, watercolor, graphite, charcoal, ink, etc.), rather than tries to hide the act of creation.

And light it up

☛ (Dominic Wilcox = extraordinaire!)
☛  WOW = See also Joshua Lowenfels Works of Art, NYC.
☛  Dominic Wilcox The Lost Sketchbooks

Light out

John Singer Sargent, en plein air, in a yacht (possibly the Constellation), with his shade umbrella strapped to his leg. And why not?

Strap it on and light out. Before it's too late. Go!

Wye Mill

Lovely autumn day Road Trip with good friends to Wye Grist Mill on the Eastern Shore.

Chocolate and Heaven

Sent from inside the Smithsonian Resident Associates all-day seminar program entitled Chocolate: From Mayan Worship to Modern Wonder, hosted by the National Museum of the American Indian. (In a pleasant 4th floor room, with big floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Mall and the elm trees turning autumnal colors. With free wifi!)

This chocolate bar was the Best Of Show bar among all the afternoon tastings IMO: Labooko Nicaragua 50, "dark-milk", made in Austria. A very close second were the Kaka'wa Cocoa Beans, made in Austin, Texas, of all places.

Morning program =
1- Mesoamerican Chocolate until 1518 (Dr. Cameron L. McNeil, anthropologist) and
2- Chocolate Becomes European, 1518-1850 (Dr. Marcy Norton, GW prof)
Afternoon program =
1- Cooking demo by the sou chef for the Mitsitam Cafe, NMAI :
 -++- Coco Seared Scallops with Argula and Orange
 -++- Chocolate and Chile Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Pumkin Puree, Wilted Brussel Sprouts, and New Mexico Chile White Chocolate Sauce
2- Chocolate Meltdown and Tasting (run by our local chocolatier Biagio Abbatiello, owner of Biagio Fine Chocolate, and trendy and cool NYC chocolate critic Mark Christian, creator of the chocolate review site c-spot.com (which is not yet live, which is a cryin' shame).

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☛ Elixir Makers : Kakawa Chocolate House, Santa Fe, NM
☛ Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao, ed. Cameron L. McNeil (2009)
☛ Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World, Marcy Norton (2010)

Location:Jefferson Dr SW,Washington D.C.,United States

Read

Much as it distresses me to laud anything having whatsoever, even remotely, to do with The City of Mossy Teeth, this looks to be an excellent exhibit: André Kertész: On Reading at the Carnegie Museum of Art.

The full gallery of all the images is here. Good stuff.

Atrium + Whipped Cream

You’re just too cool to be true.

Can’t take my hands off of you.

(latest addition to the Observe Closely household: Steve's Smash-Hit. I am so on board.)

A Reader’s Ode to the iPad (to the 4 Seasons' “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You,” by Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio), Pogue's Posts, by David Pogue, NYT Tech section.
You’re just too cool to be true.
Can’t take my hands off of you.
You’ve got a screen I can touch.
And you don’t cost all that much.
For years I kept hope alive
And at long last you’ve arrived.
You’re just too cool to be true.
Can’t take my hands off of you.

And we're (finally!) rolling again

Socially Sanctioned Screaming.

I. am. back.

Sensuality is the new conceptualism

This quote is from R.M. Vaughn's recent review in the Globe and Mail, of Nava Waxman's (!?) encaustic show, entitled Light of Reverie, at Engine Gallery in Toronto:

. . . And then it occurred to me that I’ve actually seen a lot of beeswax on the walls lately. Perhaps the stuttering economy, the omniscience of cold digital reproduction, and the overall sense of exhaustion (ideological, theoretical, and pictorial) that pervades too many exhibitions of late have all combined to make the homey feel of encaustic works more attractive.

Viewers need a hug, and encaustic works, whatever their failings (the foremost being a tendency amongst some purveyors to equate humble wax with greeting-card whimsy), are nothing if not tactile. Sensuality is the new conceptualism, to disrespect The Question.

More here.

[image above courtesy of Nava Waxman 2010]

One time I looked at a diamond

If this vid doesn't work for you, go to the marvelous   Marcel the Shell with shoes on by clicking here to go to YouTube.

Coming Soon: Opening Night

Rosie O'Window

Interview: Nancy Natale

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 / Nancy Natale Artist Interview: Easthampton MA / Lynette Haggard's Art Blog Weekly Artist Interview

Interesting interview! I am a HUGE Nancy Natale fan.

Natale = best encaustic work done today, anywhere, IMHO.

(image on left: Nancy Natale's studio, courtesy Lynette Haggard)

Ride!

Elvis and Stan

(The National Archives ALSO has Elvis' letter to "President" Nixon. Your tax dollars at work!)

Let's sleep on it

12" x 12", India ink, oak leaf, bay leaves, and encaustic on panel

Walk forward

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward. Franklin D. Roosevelt

That phantom skill

LINE BY LINE "A series on learning the basics of drawing, presented by the artist and author James McMullan. Line By Line begins with installments on line, perspective, proportion and structure, and continues from there, using examples from art history to illuminate specific issues. Pencil and paper recommended." 

This is in the NYTimes! Might be great. Bookmark it!